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The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

Page 140

by H. O. Charles


  “What?! My father would never allow that – and my elder brothers... That is ridiculous!”

  “Your father is not the king and nor are any of his sons. Silar is more powerful than any of you. You know he does not care for his title or any sort of fortune. He is blinded by love.”

  Seffe snapped out of his seat and stomped around the room. “For that whore!?” He checked himself suddenly, and muttered a brief apology.

  “No need to speak well of her in my company.”

  The younger Forllan gave him a puzzled look then, before returning to his darker thoughts. “Why our money? Calidell is not poor, and the support my father offers is surely worth more than – than this!”

  Morghiad shrugged. “Perhaps the country is not as affluent as it pretends to be. All I can report is what I heard.”

  Seffe fumed for a moment longer. “A traitor to his family. And no doubt he will blame me for it. Thank you for informing me of this. I will deal with it.”

  The bodyguard nodded and

  stood. “There is something I would like in return for this information. Would

  you grant me use of the ghar-ten? I will return it to you before the day is done.”

  The blue-eyed man’s features were vacant, utterly devoid of any measurable expression. “Take it. Do what you want with it. Blazes, but give it back soon so that I can incinerate my bloody brother with it!”

  “As you request.”

  The flame flower felt hot and urgent with energy as Seffe dropped it into his hand. It wanted to be wielded with. A shame it was not nearly as powerful as the woman he needed to

  tame. He pushed the thought aside, thanked his new ally and left the room. His next destination would require him to walk a more visible route through the overly staffed palace, and so he decided that now would be a very good opportunity for him to parse a form and make an icy accessway. It would not take him to the innards of the place he needed to be - the lady’s security forms seemed to prevent him from doing that - but it would take him close. He reached into his coat for the bundle of tightly woven fibres as he strode to a quiet corner.

  “Master Zennar?”

  Damn. He turned to face the voice, and was met by the broad grin of Sergeant Toryn D’Avrohan.

  “Skulking about the darker corners of this palace of light, I see. And why has my daughter relieved you of your duty today?”

  Morghiad made himself tidy, and hoped that this would not have to end in a fight. Then again... it would serve his purposes just as well. “She thought I was owed some time to myself.”

  The sergeant pursed his lips. “I see. Well, that was generous of her. Though, I daresay I am glad she has someone watching over her most of the time. She is liable to get herself into trouble, and she has had more than her fair share of near-deaths!” His smile rapidly faded as he considered his own words.

  “A wise man once wrote, ‘cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’ We must all be prepared to meet the end when the right course must be followed."

  Toryn’s brow furrowed, and his voice took on a tone of warning. “Just what are you saying, lad?”

  Morghiad took a step closer. “Are you valiant?”

  The sergeant did not move. “Are you mad?”

  No. He was the only sane one in this whole, blasted city! One wellaimed strike was all that was required to stun the sergeant, and a further swipe stripped him of his major weapon. Bound and quieted with Blaze, Toryn was dragged to the secrecy of an empty guest room. “One thing that has puzzled me since I learned that you were Lady D’Avrohan’s father is how you seem to be younger than she is. I find that very confusing. Or perhaps you are just another one of her sons. She seems to

  have a lot of them about the place.”

  Toryn’s eyes widened, and he blinked as he was settled into his new place of confinement.

  “Go on then, speak.” Morghiad removed the gag from his former tutor.

  “She is like you. She is born again and again. Do you know what you are, Morghiad? You live and die and live again...”

  He was beginning to get a rather nasty headache, and he did not have time for this man’s ramblings. He stood.

  “... Achellon! I always knew there was something bad about you-”

  Morghiad cut short the sergeant’s mutterings by replacing his gag, and paced rapidly out of the room. He would deal with that particular prisoner later. It was time to resume his mission. He pulled the Blaze knot from his pocket once more and swiftly set about pulling the strands apart. The cold took him slowly this time. It rocked through his bones and shuddered into his skin. Blazes but it hurt sometimes! He gritted his teeth, and soon he was standing outside the castle’s vault.

  It was really very convenient that no one saw fit to place guards

  around this area, but of course it was a result of the foolish assumption that no one could break in. Morghiad had the knowledge of the key, and now he also had the means with which to build it. He extracted the ghar-ten, pulled those hot fires into his frozen skin and constructed the implausibly complex mechanism that would unlock the vault’s door. He had only seen his mistress form it once, but once had been enough. The vibrating, burbling key shone with its blue light between his palms, and he sent it straight into the door. For a moment the wall of white crystal flickered, before fading

  away to nothing. Morghiad walked into the chamber beyond.

  All around him the items sparkled upon their respective shelves and pedestals. He could not even begin to estimate the value of some of the objects in there. But he found what he was looking for upon a far wall. As he picked the intact gale sword up, his sight was captured by the object beside it. A clear, glass heart sat upon blue velvet, and its smooth surface seemed to sing to him. He reached out a hand to touch it, but decided against it. He had no idea what it did, and would probably make more of a mess than he was about to.

  His eyes returned to the gale sword. He could certainly feel the work of the two women beneath his fingers, and the forms of such unbelievable intricacy that they had woven into the metal. It was undoubtedly a unique piece of work. And the former queen had been correct: the handle was far too small for his lumbering hands. He sat cross-legged on the floor; this was going to require every ounce of concentration he could offer. He delved into the forms that were locked beneath the silver filigree patterning and sought to understand them. The mixture of

  known and unknown structures within it was a dizzying web to navigate, but he forced himself to comprehend it until his mind burned with the effort. Closing his eyes, he pulled at the ancient fibres of Blaze Energy and twisted them into the shape he hoped would work. Fires of Achellon, but they were old! He could very nearly feel the dust that sprinkled from them when he touched them, and the millennia had made them very brittle indeed. Strong in their configuration, yes, but fragile to re-position. When he released them as gently as possible, they settled into something new. He did not possess the skill to properly balance the blade for his strength, but he could at least make the grip a better fit.

  He opened his eyes and wrapped his fingers around the newly shaped hilt. It had worked. A quick swipe through the air proved that the blade was usable and very, very deadly. He permitted himself a slight smile, and slipped the weapon into his sword belt. A shame that the other blade was unusable... or perhaps it was not. He was already becoming tired from his mental exertions but, now that he knew how a gale sword was formed, the reparatory work would be so much

  easier to replicate. He picked up the two broken sections of the sword, and within moments he had a second blade to add to his arsenal.

  Morghiad drew his cloak over his new weapons and extracted his knot of Blaze energy from his pocket. It had shrunk considerably from its numerous uses in creating accessways, but still had enough fire in it to create the necessary void. Blazes, but doing this three times in one day was going to be more painful than he wanted to contemplate! And he had to p
ray that, where it would not let him in, it would take him outside of myriad partitions

  that Lady D’Avrohan had used to seal this room. He took a deep breath, and steeled himself. No weaknesses visible. As he tore the trapped flames into nothingness, the great, black hole opened up around him and swallowed his being in its lightless clasp.

  He collapsed onto the floor, completely drained of strength. His entire body had gone into shock from the cold, and none of his muscles would respond to his instructions. Slivers of ice lay all around him.

  “Morghiad?” A pair of slimbooted feet jogged into the room. “Have you been in my rooms this

  whole time? Blazes, what happened to you?” Her touch against his skin was the only warmth he could feel, but it had the effect of melting his frozen limbs.

  “I’m alright,” he croaked.

  Her voice was marked with concern, and when he looked into her eyes he saw something that looked very much like genuine worry. “Who did this to you?”

  He thought quickly. “Seffe and a wielder I did not recognise. I don’t know why.” At least if he failed now, his words would create a little chaos and heartache for this queen and her

  general to fix.

  She nodded slowly and moved her fingers across his cheek to wipe away some of the ice crystals that had formed upon his stubble. Her touch of fire warmed him again; he was regaining strength. “You even have frost on your eyebrows.” She grinned, but it rapidly faded and her eyes dropped to his mouth. What she was about to do was obvious, and he was too slow to stop it. She kissed him.

  The only thing that prevented him from pushing her to the floor in disgust was the heat he felt from her power, and the way that it fed his

  empty veins. This was useful. His father had lectured him again and again on the necessity of surprise when fighting Artemi D’Avrohan, and now he certainly had that on his side. Morghiad grabbed her jaw roughly, and pulled his lips from hers. Her dark eyes blinked at him in confusion.

  “You are sickening,” he whispered, and reached for the nearest of Mirel’s blades.

  But his mistress was rapid to react. She leapt back onto her toes and stared at him. “Why? And-” Her eyes fell upon the gale swords at his waist. “How did you get hold of those?” A

  satisfying amount of fear was now spreading across her pale features.

  “Why? Stop pretending that you do not understand, incestuous whore! How was I conceived? Was my father your own brother? Or was he another of your sons? Or have you engaged in affairs with so many of your children that you no longer know?”

  Her brow furrowed. “You’re mad.”

  “No. Tell me the truth.” He advanced. “Tell me, mother.”

  Lady D’Avrohan stepped backwards, shaking her head. A half smile broke out across her features.

  “That’s what this is about? You think I am your mother!? Blazes – no wonder y-”

  He stopped her short of saying more by pressing the tip of his blade into her neck. “You tried to kill me. Don’t you remember? Except that you failed, and instead you killed the only mother I ever knew.” He could still remember her screams from amidst the flames, and the feel of them against his skin as he had tried to save her. She had been so kind. “Now you will suffer just as I have.”

  She tried to shake her head, but his sword prevented it. Her smile was

  now utterly gone. “You’re terribly mistaken. I am not your m-”

  “Don’t you think you have denied it for long enough? And I know why you dispensed with me, I’ve been told about that little worry you have. Oh, I know all about that!” He twisted the blade, and then kicked her towards the wall.

  Her hair flurried about her head in its waves of old gold and fire as she moved, but the former queen righted herself before she fell. She paused before committing herself to reach for her own swords. “Whoever has fed you this nonsense has another

  objective. This is ridiculous!”

  “Why deny it? Everyone has commented upon my resemblance to my brothers and sister.” He made a swipe at her, and she was quick to match it with one of her blades. Both fighters leapt apart to follow the path of their swords. Morghiad had never used the weapon of The Dedicated before, but he had been taught exactly what he should expect and had watched his mistress often enough. “My abilities with Blaze even approach theirs. Few others in this world are as powerful as our family, wouldn’t you say?”

  Her movements, voice and eyes

  were laced with frustration. This was good. “They look like you because you look like their father! We thought that perhaps you were related to him, you idiot!” This time she advanced the strike, but it was tentative and easily parried.

  Another strange wave of pain circled the edges of his skull, but he ignored it. “I can see when you lie, mother. And you are knowingly lying about that.”

  She lost her temper at that, and rallied at him with a foolish series of strikes, coupled with five, large balls of Blaze fire. Within a single second

  Morghiad had crushed the flames to nothing, disarmed her and pinned her against a bedside cabinet. She sat there, eyes glaring at him and lungs shivering as her skin burned against his hand. He had her by the neck, and the next step was inevitable.

  “It’s time for you to pay,” he whispered, whereupon he set about quenching her of all ability.

  Kalad had been dozing upon his bed when his father had marched into the room with a face as dark as thunder clouds. “I need you to come with me. It’s your mother. It is urgent,” he had said. The kahr had sprung to his feet, thrown a coat on and had trotted obediently behind the smooth strides of a man who, in as little as six months, appeared to have aged thirty years. They had taken the quietest corridors, and had moved down the darkest side of the palace, if such a side existed. But Kalad had noticed something odd about his father when he did not look directly

  at him. The light around the man seemed to be eaten up by his presence; it almost appeared to be failing around him as it would about an eisiel. Perhaps they were not quite as different as he had started to believe.

  Down and down they had stridden, and each time Kalad asked a question he had received only vague answers or indistinct murmurs. It did not take the guile of Silar Forllan to establish that something was not quite right. Kalad had prepared himself as best he could. He was not the world’s best fighter, nor was he armed with the aid of his wolf today. Danner had gone

  missing two days earlier, and everyone seemed to think that he had fathered some pups in the woodlands. But Kalad was very good at running, and not beyond the shame of leaving a dangerous situation when he might look like a coward. He offered a confident smile as his father turned briefly to look at him, and they descended the final set of stairs.

  They had come to one of the most fascinating parts of the city, as far as the kahr was concerned. These were the cisterns: the vast, underground chambers that periodically filled and emptied with water. They were there to serve the needs of the citizens and to regulate the water course that had been constructed when the city had moved. At that moment they were almost fully drained, but it would not be long before the greater contents of the canal above would be pumped through them for the evening. The thought made his back itch.

  “Ah, what is my mother doing down here?”

  “You will see. Follow me,” Morghiad said darkly.

  They trudged over the waterladen surface, and it was not long before Kalad’s boots became soaked

  through by the splashes that leapt from each foot fall. They walked between the glittering columns and the quiet trickle of light that dripped from the surface for some time, and his father only stopped when they seemed to be so far into the cistern that they’d never be found again.

  “There.” Morghiad indicated to a shaded corner of the chamber.

  Lying in a heap upon the sodden floor was the body of a woman, chains leading from her wrists and ankles to an anchor in the wall. Kalad took a step closer, and a fragment of light skipp
ed off a buckle upon his boots and onto

  her hair. It shone golden red. Oh, light! “What happened?” He ran forward and turned his mother onto her side. She was alive, but... where was her fire? “What happened to her? Who did this?” Kalad tugged in vain at the chains which held her.

  “I did,” came the whisper from his father, and the cold scrape of metal touched Kalad’s neck.

  Tiny worms of light wriggled about each other, but their pattern could soon be established as repetitive. Big worm, middle worm, small worm and big again. They struggled amongst the dark and the cold – cold that Artemi was increasingly becoming aware of. Her wrists hurt for some reason, and her head felt... muddied. Her eyes gained a greater degree of focus, revealing that the worms were simply waves upon the water before her. Why was she lying in a puddle? She attempted to sit up, but her muscles were not behaving quite as

  they should.

  There was a feeling of severe discomfort about her mouth. It felt just like a gag. Artemi attempted to bring her hands forward to undo it, but they were held back by something cold and heavy. She tried to think of how she had ended up in this position, but before she could her eyes were drawn by a moving shape in front of her. It soon resolved into two men: Kalad and Morghiad. They looked like mirror images of each other, though the emotions that their eyes carried were quite different.

 

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